Four-Year-Old Child To Undergo Gender Transition

The child will be the youngest to transition in NSW schools
- by
marie claire

01 Sep
2016

Getty

A four-year-old child is among a number of children across NSW reportedly undergoing gender transition.

The child has begun "transitioning" ahead of starting school next year.

"We have a number of ­students who are going through gender transition in our schools, with the youngest being a four-year-old at the moment," Education Department’s deputy secretary of school operations Gregory Prior told The Daily Telegraph.

"Without breaching privacy, we have a four-year-old who is transitioning to kindergarten next year who has identified as transgender.

"The Safe Schools is only one resource that can be used from a variety of resources in how we would support that family, student and school to accommodate a child going through transition."

Prominent transgender advocate Catherine McGregor told the newspaper that children at that age were often right about their need to transition, but advised caution "on making any irreversible decisions at that stage".

Up to 250 children as young as three are reportedly being treated by the gender dysphoria unit at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.

Child psychologist Michael Car-Gregg estimates that around 2.7 percent of children could fit into this category and says these children are at extra risk of bullying and they need to be managed with “compassion and sympathy”.

"It is the feeling of being born in the wrong body," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"There is a huge difference between dress-ups and a child believing with every fibre of their being they are in the wrong body."